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French eighteenth century philosopher, Jean-Jacque Rousseau, who reasoned that man began as savages in the wild threatened by both beast and other men. Everyone entered into a social contract and formed society for mutual safety and betterment by giving up a portion of their complete and unrestrained “freedom” in that earlier setting of savagery for the order and security of shared community. The freedom given up is compensated by safety and the security of mutual aid, including the modern welfare state.

According to the annual Economic Freedom of the World report, the United States has dropped to #16 in an index of economic freedom. The list, released by the Fraser Institute, ranks countries around the world by a number of different factors that include the size and scope of government: expenditures, taxes, enterprises, legal structure and security of property rights, access to sound money, freedom to trade internationally, and regulation of credit, labor, and business were all evaluated. The study also considered income levels and poverty rates. As the introduction of the study details:“The cornerstones of economic freedom are (1) personal choice, (2) voluntary exchange coordinated by markets, (3) freedom to enter and compete in markets, and (4) protection of persons and their property from aggression by others. Economic freedom is present when individuals are permitted to choose for themselves and engage in voluntary transactions as long as they do not harm the person or property of others.”At the top of the list was Hong Kong, followed by Singapore, New Zealand, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, Mauritius, Jordan, Ireland, and Canada. The United Kingdom and Chile tied at #10. The United States followed behind at #16, continuing a downward trend that has grown for several years.

The report also noted that “Nowhere has the reversal of the rising trend in the economic freedom been more evident than in the United States. Throughout the period from 1970 to 2000, the United States ranked as the world’s freest OECD nation (generally the third freest economy overall behind only Hong Kong and Singapore). The chain-linked summary rating of the United States in 2000 was 8.65. By 2005, the US rating had slipped to 8.22. The slide has continued. The 7.73 chain-linked rating of the United States in 2013 was more than 0.9 of a unit lower than the 2000 rating. Thus, the decline in economic freedom in the United States has been more than three times greater than the average decline found in the OECD [emphasis added].”While the U.S. has never had a truly free economy, the new study makes it evident that Americans have far less economic freedom and opportunity than they did in the year 2000. Now that economic conditions are even worse in the U.S. than they were before, a culture of extreme economic control has taken over and exacerbated the growing recession — one that history may end up redesignating a depression.

This social disruption has motivated the enthusiastic growth and militarization of our local police departments. The law and order crowd thrives on excessive laws and regulations that no US citizen can escape. The out-of-control war on drugs is the worst part, and it generates the greatest danger in poverty-ridden areas via out-of-control police. It is estimated that these conditions have generated up to 80,000 SWAT raids per year in the United States. Most are in poor neighborhoods and involve black homes and businesses being hit disproportionately. This involves a high percentage of no-knock attacks. As can be expected many totally innocent people are killed in the process. Property damage is routine and compensation is rare. The routine use of civil forfeiture of property has become an abomination, totally out of control, which significantly contributes to the chaos. It should not be a surprise to see resentment building up against the police under these conditions. The violent reaction against local merchants in retaliation for police actions further aggravates the situation —hardly a recipe for a safe neighborhood.

The "larger dysfunction," as you express it, arises out of a number of factors. The primary one, in my view, is a philosophical and psychological schizophrenia among the American people.

So the normal market pressures of downward price and wage adjustments in the recession are partly counter-acted by a new monetary expansion that is delaying the necessary re-coordination of market activities. Thus, given these two pressures, prices do not fall as much as a post-recession adjustment may require and they do not rise as much or as fast as might otherwise occur due to the renewed monetary expansion.

A basic income (also called basic income guarantee, Citizen's Income, unconditional basic income, universal basic income, or universal demogrant[2]) is a form of social security[3] in which all citizens or residents of a country regularly receive an unconditional sum of money, either from a government or some other public institution, in addition to any income received from elsewhere. An unconditional income transfer of less than the poverty line is sometimes referred to as a partial basic income. Basic income systems that are financed by the profits of publicly owned enterprises (often called social dividend, also known as citizen's dividend) are major components in many proposed models of market socialism.[4] Basic income schemes have also been promoted within the context of capitalist systems, where they would be financed through various forms of taxation.[5] Similar proposals for "capital grants provided at the age of majority" date to Thomas Paine's Agrarian Justice of 1795, there paired with asset-based egalitarianism. The phrase "social dividend" was commonly used as a synonym for basic income in the English-speaking world before 1986, after which the phrase "basic income" gained widespread currency.[6

Contents  [hide]  1 Policy aspects 1.1 Transparency 1.2 Administrative efficiency 1.3 Poverty reduction 1.4 Basic income and growth 1.5 Freedom 1.6 Work incentives 1.7 Affordability 1.7.1 Key principles 1.7.2 Case studies 2 Pilot programs 3 Basic income and ideology 3.1 Economic perspectives 3.2 Georgist views 3.3 Right-wing views 3.4 Feminist views 3.5 Technological unemployment 4 Criticism 4.1 Economics research 4.2 Political debate 5 Worldwide 6 Advocates 6.1 Europe 6.2 The United States and Canada 6.3 Asia, Africa, Latin America, Oceania 7 Petitions and referendums 8 Public opinions 9 See also 10 References 11 Further reading 12 External links

Technological unemployment[edit] Concerns about automation and other causes of technological unemployment have caused many in the high-tech industry to turn to basic income proposals as a necessary implication of their business models. Journalist Nathan Schneider first highlighted the turn of the "tech elite" to these ideas with an article in Vice magazine, which cited figures such as Marc Andreessen, Sam Altman, Peter Diamandis, and others.[47] The White House, in a report to Congress, has put the probability at 83% that a worker making less than $20 an hour in 2010 will eventually lose their job to a machine. Even workers making as much as $40 an hour face odds of 31 percent.[48] To better address both the funding concerns and concerns about government control, one alternative model is that the cost and control would be distributed across the private sector instead of the public sector. Companies across the economy would be required to employ humans, but the job descriptions would be left to private innovation, and individuals would have to compete to be hired and retained. This would be a for-profit sector analog of basic income, that is, a market-based form of basic income. It differs from a job guarantee in that the government is not the employer (rather, companies are) and there is no aspect of having employees who "cannot be fired", a problem that interferes with economic dynamism. The economic salvation in this model is not that every individual is guaranteed a job, but rather just that enough jobs exist that massive unemployment is avoided and employment is no longer solely the privilege of only the very smartest or highly trained 20% of the population. Another option for a market-based form of basic income has been proposed by the Center for Economic and Social Justice (CESJ) as part of "a Just Third Way" (a Third Way with greater justice) through widely distributed power and liberty. Called the Capital Homestead Act,[49] it is reminiscent of James S. Albus's Peoples' Capitalism[50][51] in that money creation and securities ownership are widely and directly distributed to individuals rather than flowing through, or being concentrated in, centralized or elite mechanisms.

We are now in a very imperfect political battlefield, on which we are striving to save a constitutional republic by democratic means. Historically, our odds are poor. All democracies in history have ultimately failed. All have descended into mob rule. This is the reason our founders did not give us a democracy. We must be the exception.

We radical capitalists say that it was the regulatory-welfare state that imploded in 2008. You may disagree, but let’s argue that out, rather than engaging in the Big Lie that what failed was laissez-faire and individualism. The question is: in the messy mixture of government controls and remnants of capitalism, which element caused the Great Depression and the recent financial crisis?

It’s a Myth that the U.S. Has Never Defaulted On Its Debt Some people argue that countries can’t default.  But that’s false. It is widely stated that the U.S. government has never defaulted.  However, that is also a myth.

On January 19th 2015 the facebook group, which combines all members of the CSLA, PS, VMV, SNB in reserve or decommissioned, issued an important memorandum, which has become even more urgent in light of the situation today. A defensive back up location in the event that the group gets „disappeared“ from Facebook, the group of the same name exists on VK.com. as well. For the first time since the end of the 2nd World War we see a genuine threat of war yet again. Consequently, we consider it necessary to issue the following statement. We, the Czechoslovak soldiers in reserve, unanimously reject any participation in battles that are geopolitical acts of aggression of the global elite by way of NATO and the support of our governments. We swore to defend our homeland the Czech and Slovak Republics. We swore to protect the freedom and independence of our proud and sovereign nations, for which our ancestors laid down their lives in the world wars. We are guided by this oath in a civilian initiative to deal with a crisis situation. Freedom and independence is being jeopardized long time by a system of representative pseudo-democracy, where an elected representative does not have the obligation to advance the interests of voters and in practice, laws represent but the personal interests of the legislators, the interests of political parties and economic interest groups. Our homeland is under the pressure of global elites and economic interest groups, who are doing away with the power of citizens through a system of representative democracy.

Our deliberately flawed constitution and charter of rights and freedoms is being perverted and constitutional laws are violated by legislators themselves. Legislative power is being privatized, executive power is being politicized and judicial power corrupted by lobbying laws and pressure from our governments. The results are an unplayable public deficit, deindustrialization, the privatization of the republic’s property and defrauded budgets, food and energy dependence, the privatization of natural resources, pensions and the health of citizens. Our country has been unlawfully divided, looted, indebted, people enslaved and their families liquidated by repossession genocide, national infrastructure transferred into the hands of western corporations. Destructive chaos and despair dominates in the community. For this reason, we the Czechoslovak soldiers in reserve recognize our military oath and together we come with a vision for the defense of our nations. We unequivocally reject fighting in the ranks of NATO against the Russian federation or other Slavic nations and we likewise intend to stand up firmly through organized civilian pressure against the further liquidation of our democracy, freedom and independence. We are uniting in a crisis situation and by utilizing our civilian and military skills and expertise we intend to create sufficiently strong, organized civil pressure for the period of time necessary to assert our patriotic goals. We swore allegiance to our homeland, the Czech and Slovak Republics. We, the Czechoslovak reserve soldiers, will fulfill this oath!